US Patent 7905665 Optical connector

An optical connector includes four main components, namely a clamp; a housing into which the clamp slides; two optical elements, a transmitter and a receiver; and an EMI metal shield surrounding the elements. The clamp has two parallel through holes for receiving fiber terminations, each through-hole having a generally conical mouth for convenient guidance of a fiber termination. Inside of the through-holes there are side resilient clamp members, and there is a single central clamp member. The clamp is of moulded plastics construction, and the clamp members are resilient in the lateral plane. The central clamp member on the other hand has little flexibility and remains essentially static throughout the clamping operation. Each resilient clamping member has a tooth at its end for snap-fitting engagement with the housing at open and closed positions. Fiber terminations are inserted through the clamp mouths and the through-holes and into the sockets of the housing. The clamp is then simply pushed inwardly so that teeth in the socket walls bite into the fiber claddings.